18 May 2011

what will they think (of me)

Coaching today revealed that the "what will they think (of me)"-fear inhibits me. I am held back in asking about the status of that funding of which I thought was supposed to be mine, but they didn't explicitly say so. I am held back in asking other people (non-academia) if I can come and chat with them. I am simply not clear, and just vague. I know now since yesterday my RA asked if I was interested in a small job of 0,2 FTE for when my contract ended. While of course, I thought everybody knew?! RA was surprised I was... which was a surprise to me.

Combining that question with todays new knowledge:
I am held back a lot in being me just by the fact that I think all the time about what people might think.

I should not laugh loud, people might think I am irritating or full of myself. I should not ask questions, people might think I am stupid. I should work out things alone, people surely think I can do that alone by now. I should not bother this other prof about helping me with the statistics of the project, he might think I am annoying. By not doing a lot of things, I might even invoke this thinking of others, since I am simply not clear. Combining my vagueness with university vagueness, things are really misty here. I thought they knew I wanted to stay, and because they didn't offer me anything, I was opting another career. While I do not know anything for sure, I just assume. Perhaps they are waiting for me to ask things. I know that I need to ask, people tell me to ask, even here on the blog, I feel that I need to ask, but apparently I needed to understand the mechanism that is holding me back before being able to take that step.

Next step is recognizing that, acknowledging it, and ignoring it.

1 comment:

  1. asking definitely does not make you look stupid. Not asking is usually worse ...
    Some things though you can avoid to ask by telling people things instead. "Prof, I want to talk to you about the funding. If we get the funding, we should perhaps start planning experiments/students/volunteers/..." or "I am working very hard on this paper now because when my contract ends in July I won't have the facilities to keep working on it (HINT)".

    Or just get very angry and yell that you are tired of all the vagueness... I did that towards the end of my PhD (because you have nothing to lose by then) and prof became suddenly very aware of me and my troubles ;)

    Good luck!

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